Santa Ana College team advances in NASA contest

A Santa Ana College student team led by 21-year-old electrical engineering student My Le advanced to the final phase of NASA Orbit Space, earning one of 11 finalist spots out of 100 schools, Voice of OC reported.

The Orange County community college team’s showing puts local students in a national STEM competition that offers more than $380,000 and mentorship from experts.

Voice of OC reported that the MEKAH team’s project, called Project Threshold, includes two robotic devices named Morpheus and Aether. The team will compete in Houston, Texas, in the final phase of NASA Orbit Space.

Aether is designed to evaluate air quality in a spacecraft airlock after a spacewalk or return from a planetary surface. Morpheus is designed to monitor astronaut health by checking vitals and performing cognitive tests.

Le, a 21-year-old Santa Ana College electrical engineering student from Garden Grove and the team leader, said the work opened a path she had not expected. "Space is something that’s unreal and I think for someone like me, it’s hard to do it and I would never imagine that I would do something related," Le told Voice of OC.

The team moved into Orbit Space after the original NASA Minds Project fell through, according to Voice of OC. Le and Ken Khant, a UC San Diego student and MEKAH team member, recruited new members and refined an earlier design for the new competition.

Tony Mendoza, a 40-year-old Santa Ana College student and mechanical drafting design major, said the trip carries personal meaning. "I’m not bringing only our school, the community college, my family, but especially pride for my country, the Philippines. I’m very, very proud because before I was an overseas Philippine worker. Now I’m a student at community college, and then I’m going to NASA," Mendoza told Voice of OC.

Helen Schwartz, the team advisor and a mechanical engineer at Caltech, said the design could have practical promise. "This could very well be a real concept in the International Space Station." Schwartz told Voice of OC.

For Le and her teammates, the trip to Houston marks a step from a Santa Ana classroom into a national competition focused on technology for space exploration.